“Here we are nestled at a gateway to downtown,” said White, 51. “There's the HemisFair Tower, the Alamo, all those new big high-rises. Just across the highway, we shouldn't have what's essentially a slum.”

While public-private revitalization efforts recently have began to take hold nearby, this corner of the East Side shows its heart but also its wounds.

White and his wife, Marilyn, sought to heal some of those wounds with the opening of their coffee shop at 806 S. Hackberry St. in June. As a small business, success would mean a toehold on the neighborhood's return to glory. As a Reading Room, where intellectual appetites could also be whetted with the hundreds of books on the restaurant's shelves, White hoped to nurture an interest in learning.

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As Friday's shuttering of the eatery confirmed, the odds were against them.

Capital and credit challenges that kept them from opening their doors earlier this year also drew a loan denial from the microlending agency ACCIÓN Texas. White appealed directly to ACCIÓN President and CEO Janie Barrera. His spark captured her attention and she overrode the denial.

“He's got that entrepreneurial spirit,” Barrera said. Acknowledging the coffee shop's closure, she added, “I don't think the story is at the end.”

As White will tell you, he wasn't prepared for the vagaries of small business ownership. It wasn't long before they fell behind on the property's mortgage. Foreclosure comes Tuesday. The lament is as much his as it is Barrera's, whose agency has a long history of helping businesses get off the ground and only recently has initiated a “wraparound” approach that helps ACCIÓN-assisted business owners stay in the game.

The lack of infrastructure has deeper roots, and while Barrera's agency is addressing some of the gaps, White underscores one of the reasons he believes success was elusive. The East Side of today lacks a legacy of ownership, he says. With that comes the network and know-how that helps small businesses stay alive. A look around at boarded-up commercial properties suggests he's right.

He had hoped to reverse that trend.

“I wanted to leave a legacy of ownership for my children and grandchildren,” White said Friday as he prepared two heaping plates of chicken Italiano and a to-go order of his heavenly meatloaf. “And I wanted to inspire people to seek their own legacy of ownership.

“It's fine to work for someone. But it just means something when you're struggling for yourself.”